Quotes about the night
page 11

“Water and stone
Flesh and bone
Night and morn
Rose and thorn
Tree and wind
Heart and mind”

Juliet Marillier book Cybele's Secret

Source: Cybele's Secret

Tree, Water, Heart

“Night wasn't so much falling as sharpening its claws.”

Jim Butcher Turn Coat

Source: Turn Coat

“Close, close all night
the lovers keep.
They turn together
in their sleep,

Close as two pages
in a book
that read each other
in the dark.

Each knows all
the other knows,
learned by heart
from head to toes.”

Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979) American poet

Source: Edgar Allan Poe & The Juke-Box: Uncollected Poems, Drafts, and Fragments

Books, Lovers, Sleep, Learning

“tonight it taco night" -rachel (cam's mom)”

Ally Carter Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy

Source: Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy

Moms

“to know a piece of grass, you’ve got to see the ground that grew it. Maybe that’s why I remember every detail of that night, every inch of ground we covered, as I followed Zach to the place that had made him, seeing them both with fresh eyes.”

Ally Carter book Only the Good Spy Young

Source: Only the Good Spy Young

Grass

“We were about to give up and call it a night when somebody threw the girl off the bridge.”

John D. MacDonald (1916–1986) writer from the United States

Source: Darker Than Amber

Girl

“The primitive in each of us climbs closer to the surface during the night, for the moon sings to it, and the cold void between the stars speaks its language. To that savage self, evil can look lovely in too little light.”

Dean Koontz book False Memory

Source: False Memory

Love, Star, Light, Evil

“Ah, it was a fine night, a warm night, a wine-drinking night, a moony night, and a night to hug your girl and talk and spit and be heavengoing.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Source: On the Road

Girl, Drink, Wine

“The night's chilly breath tickles up my neck and finds my ear, whispering secrets only the wind knows.”

Libba Bray book The Sweet Far Thing

Source: The Sweet Far Thing

Secret

“Yes, I read. I have that absurd habit. I like beautiful poems, moving poetry, and all theof that poetry. I am extraordinarily sensitive to those poor, marvelous words left in our dark night by a few men I never knew.”

Louis Aragon (1897–1982) French poet, novelist and editor

Source: Treatise on Style

Men, Beauty, Reading

“The fresh smell of coffee soon wafted through the apartment, the smell that separates night from day.”

Haruki Murakami book Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Source: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Coffee

“To me, every hour of the day and night is an unspeakably perfect miracle.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

Perfection

“Better than chocolate, being with you last night. Silly me, I thought that nothing was better than chocolate.”

E. Lockhart book We Were Liars

Source: We Were Liars

“And for the rest of the night, he couldn’t quite forget the smell of her perfume. Or maybe it was the soft sound of her chuckle. Or maybe it was neither of those things. Maybe it was just her.”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

Source: It's in His Kiss

Forgetting

“I think we dream so we don't have to be apart so long. If we're in each other's dreams, we can play together all night.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Dreams, Thinking

“So I lied to you last night. I said that I just wanted one night with you. But I want every night with you.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

“When the world is itself draped in the mantle of night, the mirror of the mind is like the sky in which thoughts twinkle like stars.”

Khushwant Singh (1915–2014) Indian novelist and journalist

Source: Delhi

World, Star

“Each of us is all the sums he has not counted: subtract us into the nakedness and night again, and you shall see begin in Crete four thousand years ago the love that ended yesterday in Texas.”

Thomas Wolfe book Look Homeward, Angel

Source: Look Homeward, Angel

Love

“All the best,
Sydney

P. S. "The Red Hurricane" is what I named the car.
P. P. S. Just because I like you, it doesn't mean I still don't think you're an evil creature of the night. You are.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Cars, Thinking, Evil

“Murderess is a strong word to have attached to you. It has a smell to it, that word - musky and oppressive, like dead flowers in a vase. Sometimes at night I whisper it over to myself:. It rustles, like a taffeta skirt across the floor.”

Margaret Atwood book Alias Grace

Source: Alias Grace

Flowers, Strong, Dead

“He stared dully at the desolate, cold road and the pale, dead night. Nothing was colder or more dead than his heart. He had loved an angel and now he despised a woman.”

Gaston Leroux book The Phantom of the Opera

Source: The Phantom of the Opera

Love, Angels, Heart, Dead

“We're going' Anne said firmly.
So soon?' Percy pleaded. 'But stars come out at night.'
Then they fade at dawn', Anne replied. 'This star needs to veil herself in darkness.”

Philippa Gregory book The Other Boleyn Girl

Source: The Other Boleyn Girl

Star

“Already with thee! tender is the night.”

John Keats Ode to a Nightingale

Stanza 4
Poems (1820), Ode to a Nightingale

“Perfect night, wasn't it?"

"It could have been." I smiled up at him. "But you were there.”

Kelley Armstrong book Bitten

Source: Bitten

Smile, Perfection

“I am nothing. I’m like someone who’s been thrown into the ocean at night, floating all alone. I reach out, but no one is there. I call out, but no one answers. I have no connection to anything.”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

Source: 1Q84 (2009-2010)

“Last night I danced with a stranger, but she just reminded me you were the one.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Time Out of Mind (1997), Standing In The Doorway

Dance

“Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing,
Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness;
So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another,
Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Tales of a Wayside Inn

Pt. III, The Theologian's Tale: Elizabeth, sec. IV.
Source: Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863-1874)

Life, Life, Silence, Distant

“Cora didn't know what optimistic meant. She asked the other girls that night if they were familiar with the word. None of them had heard it before. She decided that it meant trying.”

Colson Whitehead book The Underground Railroad

Source: The Underground Railroad

Girl

“Ranger Smiled. 'You want me to be Superman? Spend the night with me.”

Janet Evanovich book Hot Six

Source: Hot Six

Smile

“Anger can keep you warm at night, and wounded pride can spur a man to wondrous things.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind

Anger

“Saying good night to the mountains, the sun throws his most beautiful rays to them, that they may not forget him till the morning.”

Johanna Spyri book Heidi

Source: Heidi

Beauty, Mountain, Sun, Forgetting

“Some women waited for a night in shining armor. She, apparently, had ended up with a knight in black jeans and leather, who wanted to chase her down and have his evil way with her.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Bayou Moon

Women, Way, Evil, Waiting

“One beast and only one howls in the woods by night.”

Angela Carter (1940–1992) English novelist

Source: Burning Your Boats: The Collected Short Stories

“On a night without moon or stars you can't see a thing, but you can imagine anything.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Survivor

Source: Survivor

Imagination, Star

“We're taking back the night”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

“You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler.”

Italo Calvino (1923–1985) Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels

Source: If on a Winter's Night a Traveler

Travel, Winter, Reading

“the redness had seeped from the day and night was arranging herself around us. Cooling things down, staining and dyeing the evening purple and blue black.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees

“A good night sleep, or a ten minute bawl, or a pint of chocolate ice cream, or all three together, is good medicine.”

Ray Bradbury book Dandelion Wine

Source: Dandelion Wine

Sleep

“What about Myrnin?'
Eve swallowed, almost choked, and Michael patted her kindly on the back. She beamed at him. 'Myrnin? Oh yeah. He did a Batman and took off into the night. What isthat guy, Claire? If he was a superhero, he'd be Bipolar Man.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Lord of Misrule

Guy

“Don't try to solve serious matters in the middle of the night.”

Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) American author

"What The Dead Men Say" (1964)

“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of the night.”

Allen Ginsberg book Howl

Howl (1956)

Madness

“This book will take you two days to read. Did you even see the cover? It’s mostly pink. If you’re reading this book every night for months, something is not right.”

Mindy Kaling book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Source: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Books, Reading

“That Shay was in possesion of hand grenades was a comforting thought showed what kind of night this had become.”

Scott Westerfeld book Specials

Source: Specials

“I can remember my first one-night stand like it was yesterday. Well, maybe not the first. Or the second… or the fifth. I'll just begin with what I can remember and not concern myself with order.”

Chelsea Handler (1975) American comedian, actress, author and talk show host

“The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night
Was like the conscious being of the book.”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

"The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm"
Transport to Summer (1947)
Context: The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night
Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page,
Wanted to lean, wanted much most to be
The scholar to whom the book is true, to whom
The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.
The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.
And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself
Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.

Books, World, Summer, Housing

“With the whole Mark of Cain thing, does that mean if I accidentally kick you during the night, I get kicked in the shins seven times by an invisible force?”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

Time

“The heart makes its choices without weighing the consequences. It doesn't look ahead to the lonely nights that follow.”

Tess Gerritsen (1953) Chinese-American novelist

Source: Keeping The Dead

Heart

“One thing about London is that when you step out into the night, it swallows you.”

Sebastian Faulks book Engleby

Source: Engleby

“All you who sleep tonight
Far from the ones you love,
No hand to left or right,
An emptiness above--

Know that you aren't alone.
The whole world shares your tears,
Some for two nights or one,
And some for all your years.”

Vikram Seth (1952) Indian writer

Love, World, Tear, Sleep

“Where did this come from? Do you know what this is? Luca is going to sneak out of bed in the middle of the night and squirt it on his tongue. It's like drugs for ten-year-olds. Today it's Ice Magic. Tomorrow, heroin.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Saving Francesca

“Night was a very different matter. It was dense, thicker than the very walls, and it was empty, so black, so immense that within it you could brush against appalling things and feel roaming and prowling around a strange, mysterious horror.”

Guy De Maupassant (1850–1893) French writer

Source: The Complete Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant, Part One

Feeling

“But at night, when the library lamps are lit, the outside world disappears and nothing but the space of books remains in existence.”

Alberto Manguel (1948) writer

Source: The Library at Night

Books, World

“For it is only habit and memory that dulls the physical passion. Without memory, each night is the first night, each morning is the first morning, each kiss and touch are the first.”

Alan Lightman book Einstein's Dreams

Source: Einstein's Dreams

Kiss, Memory, Passion

“People weren't firecrackers who burst into the night sky with brilliance and glory, and a moment later faded away to nothing. Our souls had to be more lasting than that.”

Janette Rallison (1966) American writer

Source: Just One Wish

People, Soul

“Drugs age you after mental excitement. Lethargy then. Why? Reaction. A lifetime in a night. Gradually changes your character.”

James Joyce Ulysses

Source: Ulysses

Age, Change

“Jason patted me on the back. “Tomorrow night we'll take you out chasing deer.”
“I thought you'd chase cars,” I said.
He grinned. “What fun is that? Cars don't bleed.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book The Killing Dance

Source: The Killing Dance

Cars

“Last night I walked clear down to Times Square & just as I arrived I suddenly realized I was a ghost - it was my ghost walking on the sidewalk.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Source: On the Road

Time

“That was the only decision there was once upon a time: what to do with the night.”

Harry Crews (1935–2012) Novelist, short story writer, essayist

Source: A Feast of Snakes

Decision, Time

“Both read the Bible day and night,
But thou read'st black where I read white.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

Reading

“Many of us have made our world so familiar that we do not see it anymore. An interesting question to ask yourself at night is, What did I really see this day?”

John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

World, Question

“Say the word. Say the word and I won't go.

Say the word, Qhuinn. Do it and I'll spend the night with you.

Better yet, why don't you just kiss me”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Mine

Kiss

“The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me,
And I cannot, cannot go.”

Emily Brontë (1818–1848) English novelist and poet

Spellbound (November 1837)
Context: p>The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow,
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me—
I will not, cannot go.</p

“There is a special charm to journeys undertaken before daybreak in hot lands: the air is soft and cool and the coming of dawn reveals a landscape fresh from the night dew.”

Aung San Suu Kyi book Letters from Burma

Source: Letters from Burma

“A pity to survive night flights over St. Georges Channel only to crack my skull falling from a ladder.”

Eoin Colfer book Airman

Source: Airman

“Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again!
For so the night will more than pay
The hopeless longings of the day.”

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools

Source: Longing

Dreams

“Do you normally turn up in gentlemen's bedrooms in the middle of the night? If I'd known that, I would have campaigned harder to make sure Charlotte let you stay.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

“God, I miss you,” he said in a voice that cracked. “Every night. Every day…”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Reborn

God

“Last night you said you wanted to know what to expect so you could better select your attire. I told you we were going to visit a vampire in a Goth-den tonight. Why, then, Ms. Lane, do you look like a perky rainbow?”

Karen Marie Moning book Darkfever

Source: Darkfever

“Birds are settling down for the night, singing lullabies to their young.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

Bird, Singing

“P. P. S. Just because I like you, it doesn't mean I still don't think you're an evil creature of the night. You are.”

Richelle Mead Blood Promise

Source: Blood Promise

Thinking, Evil

“slept all night in the cedar grove,
i was born to ramble, born to rove,
some men are searchin' for the holy grail,
but there ain't nothin' sweeter
than ridin' the rails”

Tom Waits (1949) American singer-songwriter and actor

Men

“Apparently unaffected, she rose. "Yeah, you're probably right. I should be going." She feigned a yawn. "You've gotta head back to work and I've gotta head to jail. Big night for me. I'm planning to shiv someone for a bar of soap. --”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Dreams of a Dark Warrior

“His blue eyes were very dark… Will's were the colour of the sky just on the edge of the night…”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

“A career is wonderful, but you can't curl up with it on a cold night.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Variant: A career is wonderful, but you can't curl up with it on a cold night.
Source: On Being Blonde (2007), p. 53

“What he could bear in the waking world he could not by night and he sat awake for fear the dream would return.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Road

Source: The Road

World, Fear, Dreams

“A perfect night… a perfect forever”

Mary E. Pearson book The Kiss of Deception

Source: The Kiss of Deception

Perfection

“Madelyne, we're married now. 'Tis a usual occurrence to bed one's wife on the wedding night.”

Julie Garwood (1946) American writer

Source: Honor's Splendour

Wedding

“The craving to risk death is our last great perversion. We come from night, we go into night. Why live in night?”

John Fowles book The Magus

Source: The Magus

Death

“I got lost in the night, without the light
of your eyelids, and when the night surrounded me
I was born again: I was the owner of my own darkness.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Light

“Remember, no matter how dark the night, there is always a happy ending. But first, you have to make it through the night.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Happiness

“1lb beefstak, with
1pt bitter beer
every 6 hours.
1 ten-mile walk every morning.
1 bed at 11 sharp every night.
And don't stuff your head with things you don't understand.”

Jerome K. Jerome book Three Men in a Boat

Source: Three Men in a Boat

Beer, Understanding

“Some praise the Lord for Light,
The living spark;
I thank God for the Night
The healing dark.”

Robert W. Service (1874–1958) Canadian poet

God, Light

“Night is certainly more novel and less profane than day.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

“There’s no use saying anything in the schoolyard because there’s always someone with an answer and there’s nothing you can do but punch them in the nose and if you were to punch everyone who has an answer you’d be punching morning noon and night.”

Frank McCourt book Angela's Ashes

Source: Angela's Ashes (1996)

“I want to write about people who dream and wait for the night to end, who long for the light so they can hold the ones they love.”

Haruki Murakami (1949) Japanese author, novelist

Source: After the Quake

Love, People, Dreams, Light

“If I lose the light of the sun, I will write by candlelight, moonlight, no light. If I lose paper and ink, I will write in blood on forgotten walls. I will write always. I will capture nights all over the world and bring them to you.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Do I Come Here Often

World, Light, Sun

“She fell asleep, and it was a sleep as thin as the night clouds, dotted with dreams that came and went like the stars.”

Lois Lowry book Number the Stars

Source: Number the Stars

Dreams, Star, Sleep

“Not much touches us, but we long to be touched. We lie awake at night willing the darkness to part and show us a vision.”

Jeanette Winterson book The Passion

Source: The Passion

Lie, Parting

“C'mon, Tabitha. You stabbed me the night we met without even blinking. (Valerius)
Yeah, but you were a dirtbag then. (Tabitha)
I think I'm offended. (Valerius)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Seize the Night

Thinking

“So in the sweltering heat of a July night, I sang a Christmas carol to a room full of fae, who had been driven out of their homelands by Christians and their cold-iron swords.”

Patricia Briggs book Blood Bound

Source: Blood Bound

Christmas

“Thought's a luxury. Do you think the peasant sits and thinks of God and Democracy when he gets inside his mud hut at night?”

Graham Greene book The Quiet American

Source: The Quiet American

God, Democracy, Thinking

“If he was winter, I was summer. If I was sunshine, he was night. A dark and stormy one.”

Karen Marie Moning book Darkfever

Source: Darkfever

Winter, Summer

“The summer demands and takes away too much. /But night, the reserved, the reticent, gives more than it takes”

John Ashbery book Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror

Source: Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror

Summer

“Hey,” Shayne said through the door. “You going to stay in there all night, because we’re getting tired of trying to eavesdrop from out here. Can’t hear a damn thing.”

Jill Shalvis (1963) American writer

Source: Smart and Sexy

“… but it is good to be several floors up in the dead of night wondering whether you are any good or not and the only decision you can make is that you did it…”

Frank O'Hara book Lunch Poems

Source: Lunch Poems

Decision, Dead

“She smiled. “Life is full of stories. Or maybe life is only stories. Good night, my dear Nao.”

Ruth Ozeki book A Tale for the Time Being

Source: A Tale for the Time Being

Life, Smile

“O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:”

William Blake book Songs of Experience

The Sick Rose, plate 39.
Source: Songs of Experience (1794)
Context: p>O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.</p

Art

“So you interrupted my date to make fun of me for still living with my parents. Couldn't you have done that on a night I didn't have a date? That's most nights, in case you're curious.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Parent